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A Life on Display
Our townhouse in Denver overlooks a beautiful park. On the edge of the park, there is a public outdoor fitness course which one man in the entire Denver Metro area uses. On that morning, he was there, hitting every station in earnest, making the city planner who had fought for the balance board proud. “Installing…
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How to Summer in Alaska
The other evening my husband Mark and I were on a peaceful stroll when we came across this we shoot to kill sign. A not so subtle warning to trespassers. I had just been thinking our walk was similar to our post-dinner walks in Boulder, where we came from. Mountain views, similar style homes and…
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Teaching Kids About Guns; Family’s First Lesson in Firearms
A 14-month-old child stumbles around a coffee table clinging to it as he focuses on the exciting objects on top; brightly colored blocks, soft squeaky toys, and a Smith and Wesson hand gun. The toddler picks up and plays/chews on each item with little reaction from his dad, unless it is the gun. And then…
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Reflections in a Mountain Town
I sat judging the man from my seat at the bar. And a bar stool, as many know, is a perfect spot from which to judge. The man looked out of place in this crowded old west style saloon as he clung tightly to the straps of his fancy backpack. Made of quilted black…
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What are the odds?
Every so often, just when you think you’re going to make good time on knocking out the day’s “to do” list, you have an encounter that grinds time to a halt. Such was an encounter recently when I brought my son Anders to a retro looking barber shop before a trip to L.A. (As evidence…
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What to do if you run out of gas
I couldn’t believe it, I had run out of gas. After 15 years I knew my Toyota well. I knew that the needle on the gas gauge could hover in the red zone for miles and miles till it became bored by its own bluff. So, when my car shuddered to a stop in the…
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Mid-Life Musings
A couple of years ago, I was at the hair salon explaining to my 20-something-year-old stylist why we were moving from Colorado all the way to Alaska. It was a question I got a lot, and I gave her my usual, rehearsed answer. “We think Alaska will be an adventure,” I said, “it’s just a…
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The Hunt for the Northern Lights
Every once in a while I look up, and I’m reminded that I live in Alaska. That reminder may come in the form of a stunning view, or as a large mounted animal head (they’re everywhere), or as a sign along a hiking trail that only I seem to find funny. (Another sign I couldn’t…
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Life on the Outskirts
“The Hunt” Act I: “It’s not at the restaurant,” my husband Mark says, starting to panic. He had used my cell to inquire about his own, which he thought he must have left at the restaurant where we had dinner an hour earlier. “And you checked the couch?” I ask, because 9 times out of…